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PMS on Drobo5N Trying to Transcode almost everything remotely making it unusable.

I have been using PMS on my Drobo5N to watch movies locally and remotely for close to a year now. It was a great experience up until about a month ago when it began attempting to transcode almost everything remotely even movies it previously didn't attempt to transcode. Here is my situation:

Before about a month ago:Locally:
My Drobo5N PMS would stream all of my library to my local Apple Tv without attempting to transcode video. This was pretty much the same for my local Roku and iPhone app.

I have Plex Pass and I could watch previews and extras without PMS attempting to transcode anything locally. I never tried watching previews and extras remotely in the passed so I cant evaluate that.

Remotely:
The vast majority of content would play without attempting to transcode (about 70% of my library would play) which is fine and I was happy and whenever it couldn't play a movie without trying to transcode I would get a message saying that the movie couldn't play which is fine.

After a month a go.Locally:
Movies still play without attempting to transcode but now if I try to watch a preview or extra the PMS tries to transcode them and I am stuck watching a never ending loading screen.

Remotely
PMS is attempting to transcode every single movie, preview and extra leaving me stuck watching a loading screen that never ends or a finally plays a short clip for a few seconds before loading screen returns.

Because the Drobo5N can't transcode video well, if at all, I am stuck watching a black screen.

All my devices are set to play "Original, 1080p HD" with Direct Streaming and Direct Play on.

The problem occurs regardless of the device I play it on and not just the Apple TV. It occurs only when streaming to a device over the web and movies that would stream without issue and without attempting to transcode in the past now always attempt to transcode.

I monitor things with plexpy and when I check on a movie that I try to stream on the web plexpy shows that my Drobo5N server is attempting to transcode video as well as audio and not just audio. (audio transcoding worked fine in the past via my Drobo) The most confusing thing about this is that the Drobo5N should not be able to transcode video at all. In fact, up until this problem started, when a video required transcoding a message would just say something to the effect of the device could not handle the video file but now that no longer happens. Now it actually attempts to transcode the video resulting in just a blank screen or sometimes it actually transcodes a few seconds of video before going back to a blank screen. I really think this is a plex server issue and not a plex device end issue.

I will attempt to watch a movie on my iphone plex app over the web now so that I can give you the info you asked for:

I've recently started seeing a similar problem, however I'm convinced it's the android app on the Kindle that's causing it. Absolutely nothing changed on the server, but now the Kindle wants to transcode every single video. All videos are 720p, AAC mp4's, which the Kindle can handle natively. I presume this problem will go away when Amazon finally deigns to release a current version of the app.

Howdy, Stranger!

When logs (server or client app) are requested for an investigation, please do NOT turn on "verbose" logging unless it is explicitly requested. Verbose logging makes things much more difficult in the majority of cases.